by Fred Crawley
Joanie was furious. ‘Not the picture,’ she said. ‘I don’t want him, or her. I don’t want it.’
Joanie’s mum sat down. ‘Honey don’t say that. You’ll love having a little brother or sister.’
‘I won’t,’ she said and stamped her foot. She would have stormed out of the room if there hadn’t been things that needed to be said. ‘I don’t want it. I don’t want to share.’
‘Sit down Joanie,’ said her dad and pulled out the chair next to him.
She looked at him but sat down anyway.
‘Joanie, your mum and I love you very much. You understand that don’t you?’
Reluctantly she nodded.
‘Having another baby doesn’t mean we are going to love you any less.’
‘No, but you’ll have less time for me.’
Her dad nodded. ‘Maybe but you’ve got less time for us these days as well. You’re at school all day and you’ve got homework and friends.’
Joanie crossed her arms.
‘Joanie your mother and I are excited about having a new baby. You will love him or her. You’ll be glad, I promise.
She hadn’t believed him then or even when they found out it was going to be a boy and started talking about names and decorating the spare bedroom. Her mum had started to get bigger and Joanie imagined what it was going to be like to have a little brother to look after. She would show him all the things she loved to do and she would teach him about the world. By the time her mum started her maternity leave she couldn’t wait to meet her brother.
She had loved him, more than anything else in the world she had loved him and then he was gone. Their perfect little safe family was destroyed in a matter of minutes.
Now he was back. Now everything was going to be perfect again.
Her mum was still holding Ben but Joanie noticed that her arms had gone limp and her head was tilted back. Ben had his hands around her head like he was holding her up.
‘Mum?’ said Joanie.
Her mum didn’t answer and didn’t even look as if she had heard her. Joanie looked at her dad and saw that he was concerned.
He stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. She didn’t move.
‘Let me take him,’ he said and reached out to pick up Ben.
He came away from her mum with a sticky wet sound. When he was no longer holding her she started to fall down. Joanie saw blood on her neck and an open wound with fibres and ragged flesh hanging in clumps.
Joanie screamed.
Ben opened his mouth and a bloated tongue fell out. Blood and muscle fibre dribbled to the floor where it landed with a moist splat.
The room was quiet. Everyone was watching with fascinated horror.
‘Get away!’ said her father. Ben was straining to get at his dad’s neck. With great effort her dad forced himself to drop the boy.
He landed on his feet and didn’t fall down. He looked up at them and his marble eyes seemed to shine with inner darkness.
Joanie reached for her dad’s hand and pulled him a step back.
Ben looked at them and at the other faces in the small semi-circle that had formed around him. He hissed like a cat and lunged forwards.
They stepped back again and the semi-circle expanded. Joanie could hear a thumping sound and a few loud voices at the back of the room.
She pulled at her dads hand but he was rooted to the spot, his eyes transfixed on Ben. Joanie knew without having to wait for an explanation that whatever that thing was, it wasn’t her brother.
The Ben thing turned its head to scan the faces looking at it. On the floor Joanie’s mum remained still, a small pool of blood forming beneath her body which was twisted like broken twigs.
‘Dad!’ said Joanie as she tried to pull him away but he wouldn’t move.
‘Let us out!’ cried a voice from the back of the church.
Joanie turned and saw that the two huge wooden doors had been closed and, apparently, locked. She had to find the vicar and let him know but first she had to get her dad away.
‘Dad come on,’ she said, but she couldn’t make him move.
The Ben thing locked eyes with someone on the other side of the circle. It licked its lips.
Joanie turned to see who it was and then cried out, ‘oh no! Mrs Mitchell!’
Mrs Mitchell turned to look at her, a cautious smile on her face. Then Ben leaped into the air with unnatural grace. He flew about five metres and landed on her head. The old woman didn’t even have time to scream before the boy monster wrapped his arms around her head and lowered his mouth to her face.
For a moment it looked like Ben was going to kiss her in that opened mouth way her mum and dad sometimes did. After all that she had just seen that image was more than Joanie could stand, she turned away and gave her breakfast to the stone floor.
After a moment she felt a hand on her back. She flinched and started to pull away until she heard her dad say, ‘it’s okay honey. Everything’s going to be fine.’
She wiped her mouth and looked up at him, grateful that he had snapped out of his daze.
She smiled up at her dad and then they heard Mrs Mitchell fall to the floor like a sack of rocks. The voices calling to be let out were getting louder as was the thumping on the door. Joanie looked up and saw her dad turning back towards Ben.
‘Dad!’ she said in a sharp voice.
He turned back to her, his face pale. ‘Sorry.’
Ben was looking around the circle again, looking for his next victim. People were trying to back away now but they were butting up against the group who were behind the door trying to get out. No one was in charge and Joanie realised that if she didn’t do something they were all going to die, just like her mum and just like Mrs Mitchell.
She felt tears welling up but she didn’t have time for that now.
She tugged her dads arm and, reluctantly, she thought, he followed her away. She didn’t try to push into the main crowd around the door but went to the side where there was still some empty space. She passed Ben’s empty coffin and continued until she reached the wall.
High above her head there was a stained glass window but she wouldn’t have been able to reach it, even if she had stood on her dad’s shoulders.
‘What’s going on dad?’ she said, because asking him to explain an unfamiliar situation seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do.
He shook his head and she wondered whether he would have been able to speak even if he had understood.
‘Okay,’ she said without really knowing what she was going to say next. She was thinking on her feet but what else could she do? This wasn’t the sort of situation primary school had prepared her for. ‘Wait here, okay?’
Her dad nodded again but he was blank behind the eyes. If the Ben thing got her dad she would be an orphan, he was all she had left. She considered taking him with her but he would only slow her down. She would just have to hope he would be okay.
CHAPTER 5
THE FIRST THING SHE HAD TO DO WAS find the vicar. He must have performed hundreds of funerals; maybe something like this had happened before. It didn’t seem likely but at least he would be able to unlock the door so people could get out.
Joanie stood on the pew next to her dad and for a moment she expected him to tell her to get down. Instead someone screamed and Joanie turned and saw Ben leap on some elderly uncle or cousin.
The woman next to him screamed and tried to pull Ben away. With a casual flick of his arm Ben knocked her to the ground. No one tried to help her up and no one took over her attack on Ben. Instead they made a circle around them and watched.
Joanie couldn’t see the vicar but the door he had come through was on the other side of the room. There were two ways she could get to the door. The first and more direct route meant walking past Ben and she didn’t want to do that. Right now he was rocking back and forth on the man’s face as if he was trying to pull it off his head.
The second route was to go through the people who were cr
owding in front of the door. It would take longer but she figured she stood a better chance of getting there in one piece.
She jumped off the bench and glanced back at her dad. He was staring open mouthed at the wall in front of him. She didn’t think she had to worry about him moving.
It only took a moment for Joanie to see that there was no way she was going to be able to get through the crowd. They were surging forwards as if they hoped they would be able to open the door if enough of them pushed. This meant that the people at the front and those who were right up against the door were being squashed from both sides. There wasn’t enough room to slip a knife between them, let alone a nine year old girl.
Going past Ben looked like it was the only option she had.
Joanie hesitated. She really didn’t want to go back, to see her dead mother, her catatonic father and her homicidal brother. There had to be another way.
She couldn’t go through the crowd and she couldn’t go around it which left one possibility; going above it. She considered the possibility. The scrum was about six or seven people deep and those from the middle back were bent over and pushing.
Joanie climbed tentatively onto the first back and heard the person below her grunt. She tried to stand but wobbled. A single step took her onto the next back but she quickly realised that slow and steady was likely to leave her on the floor being crushed by uncaring feet.
She stood up again and wobbled. She took a breath and leaped from back to back.
Her hair flew out behind her and she felt as if she was going to fall. But that was okay. The momentum carried her forwards and before she knew it she was on the other side. When she fell she fell onto the pew and a loud bang resounded around the church. No one seemed to notice.
She picked herself up and brushed herself down. She could see the door and there was no longer anything in her way. She ran towards it and knocked. The door swung open and she stepped inside.
It was dark and cool and smelled of cigarettes. At first Joanie didn’t think that the vicar was there. She felt for a light switch on the wall but couldn’t find one. The noise in the church behind her seemed distant and unimportant.
‘Hello?’ she said.
There was no reply but in her effort to hear one she found that she could hear muttering somewhere in the dark room.
‘Hello, vicar?’
The muttering stopped and a light was switched on. The room was much smaller than she had expected in the absolute darkness. It was barely big enough for the desk the vicar was sitting at. The walls were lined with shelves full of old books. There was a single chair on either side of the desk and a bible open on top of it.
Joanie walked across the room and stood next to the vicar. He didn’t look at her but picked up a packet of cigarettes and lit one. He blew smoke into the air and Joanie coughed.
‘I don’t usually smoke,’ he said. ‘A parishioner left these.’
Joanie didn’t understand. Didn’t he realise what was happening in the church?
‘I suppose I should be praying,’ he said, flicking ash on the open bible. ‘Somehow this seems more appropriate.’
‘Father,’ said Joanie and then couldn’t remember whether it was Catholic or Anglican priests who were called father. She couldn’t remember his name though and he didn’t seem to mind so father would have to do. ‘The door is locked.’
He nodded, sucked on his cigarette and didn’t look at her.
‘Can you unlock it?’ she said.
The vicar sighed and turned towards her. He put the cigarette in his mouth and rubbed his jaw. ‘I’m afraid you don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I locked the door myself.’
‘What do you mean?’
The vicar stubbed his cigarette out on the desktop and threw the butt on the floor where Joanie could see others had already been dropped. He closed his bible with a thud. He spun his chair around so he was facing her. ‘You’re just a child so I don’t expect you to understand. But you deserve an explanation.’
Joanie wanted to defend herself: yes she was just a child but she was doing more than a whole lot of adults to try and fix the situation. But the vicar looked a wreck. The last twenty-minutes hadn’t been kind to him: his eyes were puffy and blood shot, his skin shined with a greasy film and his hands were shaking. Joanie thought she could forgive a little condescension given the state he was in.
‘Something has gone wrong,’ he said, ‘very, very wrong. You know when I first saw your brother rise I thought it was a miracle. That all of your families prayers had been answered. Do you know the last person to rise from the dead?’
Joanie shook her head.
‘Our Lord Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘More than two-thousand years ago.’
Joanie nodded but she felt as if she was humouring him, she didn’t believe in any of that stuff.
‘Of course, I thought to myself, the second coming. And about time, am I right?’
Joanie shrugged.
‘Anyway, it seemed like a miracle but it has turned into a curse. Your brother...’
‘That’s not my brother,’ said Joanie.
The vicar waved away her objection. ‘Whatever it is, it isn’t our Lord and Saviour.’
Of course it wasn’t, any fool could see that. What Joanie wanted to know was why the vicar had locked the door and what she had to do to get him to open it again. ‘What is it then?’
The vicar shrugged. ‘The anti-Christ? A zombie? Whatever it is it’s unholy and I will not let it escape.’
That made a certain kind of sense, she had to admit. The idea of that thing getting out into the world was pretty horrific. ‘So what do we do?’
The vicar turned back to his desk and lit another cigarette. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’
Joanie left the vicar and walked back into the church. At first glance everything seemed as it had been when she left. But slowly it dawned on her that the group by the door and the group surrounding Ben had merged into one. One desperate looking mosh pit surging around the room.
She turned to the front and could no longer see Ben. Her dad, however, was still sitting where she had left him.
Joanie ran across the room, pushing people that got in her way but mostly weaving between them. She grabbed her dads arm and pulled him to his feet, he co-operated like a lifeless dummy.
‘Dad!’ she said, she had to shout to hear her own voice above the wailing crowd.
He turned at the sound of her voice and smiled. ‘Joanie, there you are. Have you seen your mother and Ben?’
That was just what she needed, her father losing his mind. But now was not the time to deal with that. ‘Dad you need to come with me,’ she said.
‘No Joanie, I think it’s better if we wait here. Your mother and Ben will be back soon.’
That was pretty much what she was afraid of. But she had to move her dad somewhere safe and there wasn’t time to fix whatever had gone wrong in his head first. ‘They’re over here dad. Remember? We said we would meet them?’
Her father appeared to think about it and smiled. ‘Oh yeah, of course. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. Come on then.’
She led them through the crowd, looking around for a sign of Ben as she did. She couldn’t see him but that, she realised, did not mean he couldn’t see them.
CHAPTER 6
AT THE FRONT OF THE CHURCH JOANIE LED her dad up onto the platform the vicar had been standing on. Behind that, behind the grotesquely golden crucifix there was a small recess.
They had to work out what to do but the problem was such a big one that Joanie couldn’t contemplate it all at once. It was better, she decided, to tackle one small problem at a time and hopefully that would add up to a big solution.
The first problem then was keeping her dad safe. She considered taking him into the little office where the vicar sat chain smoking but on reflection that didn’t seem like such a good idea: they were both out of their minds, whether temporarily or permanently, she didn’t like to
think what they might be capable of talking each other into.
Instead Joanie led her dad as far back in the church as possible. This was an area never meant to be seen by the worshipping masses. It was like being back stage at Disney Land. There were half empty cups of coffee tucked behind platforms and paint tins on the floor.
Joanie kept looking for Ben but she didn’t see him and she couldn’t hear him. It occurred to her that he might have found a way out and that she was only jumping at shadows.
She tucked her dad behind the cornice. There was a little wooden door next to him but she didn’t think he would fit inside it. She let go of his hand.
‘Wait here, okay?’
‘Is this where we’re meeting mum and Ben?’
Joanie nodded and then thinking on her feet added: ‘don’t you remember? You’re playing a game with Ben.’
‘A game?’ he said, ‘What sort of game?’
‘He’s trying to find you and you’re trying to stop him. So if you see him hide.’
He nodded but didn’t look convinced. ‘What about your mum?’
Joanie thought about it and didn’t think there was much chance of him seeing her. ‘That’s fine, you’re allowed to see mum.’
He smiled.
‘Stay hidden, remember?’
‘Oh yes, of course.’ He ducked behind the cornice.
Joanie waited there a moment to see if he would reappear but he didn’t.
The next thing she needed to do was find a way out. She wondered if the better course of action might be to find Ben and try to stop him
(kill him)
somehow. She wasn’t sure she could do it though and if she tried but failed he would kill her, just like her killed her mum.
She put that thought in her back pocket. If she did encounter him it would help to remember that it wasn’t really Ben, it was a monster that had already killed three people.
She walked back to the front of the church. Everyone was still there but the crush around the door had gone. People were milling around in loose groups, nursing cuts and bruises. There was still no sign of Ben but on the floor at the foot of the stage she could see the lifeless bodies of the unknown uncle, Mrs Mitchell and her mum.
